


Hizashi

by apollos



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotions, F/M, Headcanon, Platonic Life Partners, Post-Mortem Character, Pregnancy, Teen Pregnancy, spirituality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 07:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3928963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollos/pseuds/apollos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The child with Lee in chapter 700 is Tenten and Neji's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hizashi

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't my favorite thing I've ever written, but I feel pressured to get it out before canon totally josses this idea. But until Kishi says no, as far as I'm concerned, mini-Lee is Neji and Tenten's spawn. I could've continued it and made it better but, eh. Maybe I'll return when it's confirmed AU.

"Mom," Hizashi is saying at the side of her bed in the hospital, "it's okay. You can let go."

"Don't give me that shitty advice," is Tenten's last words, and there's a smile on her face as she passes.

The transition to the afterlife is smooth. Tenten is surprised by how stark and white and plain everything is. That is, until things start to fill in—until she's sixteen and sitting in her old training field—until Neji is sitting in front of her. She gasps and wraps her arms around his neck, crying out, realizing how parched she's been for his image.

"How did you die?" is Neji's first question, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Old age," Tenten says, laughing. It's amazing to hear her voice like this again, to feel her body like this again, to feel Neji like this again.

"Thank God," Neji says; Tenten has never seen him this relaxed, in life or in death. "That's—that's what I wanted."

"All I wanted was you, Neji, oh." Tenten's arms are still wrapped around Neji; she tightens them, so hard that if they were alive she'd choke him. "You missed—you missed Hizashi's entire life."

"I'll see him soon," Neji says, patting her hair. It's back in the buns—the buns! Tenten hasn't worn her hair in buns for years, but braided it conservatively down her back. "It feels like both forever and a day since I've seen you. Time, here—it's meaningless."

"After I gave birth—" Tenten says, tears in her eyes, the memory coming back to her—"And I had the dream—"

"That was me."

"How?" Tenten had always believed it. The only person she had told it to was Hizashi, when she thought he was old enough, and he believed it, too. He had even told her something similar, that he'd had a dream the night he became a Genin in which his father appeared to congratulate him, but it didn't feel like a dream. And the feeling of feathers on her skin or wind in her hair—she knew it was Neji, always.

"It's very difficult and very tiring, but it's worth it. I can't do it too often. And I didn't want to bother you."

It's the most Neji thing Tenten has heard in her life—her long, Neji-less life—and she is now fully crying, barely able to believe this is real. The training field is beautiful: the grass is long and swaying in the wind, the dummies and poles are scuffed, the sky is blue and cloudless and there are birds soaring overhead. It is peaceful. It is the perfect conditions for them to spar. It is just how Tenten remembers it from when they were young, from when they trained and rolled together in this grass, where she most likely conceived their son.

"Do you want to hear—"

"Yes. I've been waiting. Yes."

* * *

 

"You're lucky you didn't lose the baby in the war."

Sakura's face goes dark as the unspoken words linger between them. Tenten curls her fists on her knees, shutting her eyes tight. She wonders if  _he_  knew, if he could see burgeoning chakra inside of her that was not her own, and if he chose not to say anything. She wonders if he knew in general, that he was not coming back. When she opens her eyes she doesn't like the look of pity on Sakura's face, doesn't like that she  _knows_ , and she says:

"Yeah, well, I'm not lucky about what I  _did_  lose. Cut this thing out of me."

"Tenten." Sakura's voice is soft. She sits beside her on the hospital bed and places a gentle hand on her thigh. Tenten is close to tears. Tenten is weak. "Do you think that's what Neji would have wanted?"

"Yes," Tenten says, squeezing her eyes against the tears that are about to come, lying. "He wouldn't want me to suffer."

"You'll suffer more if you get rid of the baby."

"Stop calling it that."

She doesn't abort it; instead, she sits on the hospital bed and cries, just this once. Her body is war-torn and inside of it, a new battle is beginning. He had to have known, had to have seen this thing developing inside of her, and still he sacrificed his life. Tenten wishes she could hate him.

The pregnancy is a smooth one. Leave it to Neji's child to be polite and respectful while he inhabits her womb, she thinks. She is put to immediate temporary retirement; Konoha has lost too many in the war and any new life is welcome and needed. Because of this, Lee takes it upon himself to guard her and her baby, even though the world is peaceful and the only threat to the thing inside of her are natural threats that cannot be guarded against with a good punch.

"You don't have to do this, Lee," Tenten says around the second week of his guarding. He mostly just cooks and cleans for her, both haphazardly and sloppily, but Tenten appreciates it all the same. She knows it makes him feel good to have something to do. Tenten isn't not showing yet, but she's cradling her flat stomach anyway, convinced she can feel the child's chakra pulsating through her skin. She feels more aware of the fetus than she thinks other pregnant women do, civilian women, since her ninja training has made her extra alert and the child already has a strong chakra signature.

"Yes I do," Lee says, stopping in his flurry of cleaning the apartment and looking at her with a serious weight in his eyes. Tenten snaps out of her thoughts. "It is my duty as the child's protector."

"It's a self-appointed duty," Tenten sighs. "Honestly, I could be on a mission right now." Most of the available missions are little after-war things, eliminating ragged remnants of revolution and boring diplomacy assignments, but the sentiment is the same. They're perfectly safe for a pregnant kunoichi.

Lee sits beside her and puts a gentle hand on her thigh with that serious weight again, something everybody has been doing to Tenten every time they talk to her, even Gai-sensei. She supposes that, as a war widow by any other name, this is the treatment best suited for her. "I will guard this child's life with my own youthful one as long as I may live," Lee says. "It is the least I could do for our beloved and fallen Neji."

 _Our beloved and fallen Neji_ and, damn hormones, she's bursting into tears. Lee wraps his arms around her and Tenten lets it happen, wonders if Neji's looking at this from the afterlife and trying to pretend he's not jealous. She wonders if it's wrong of her to wish to trade their lives. The burden of Lee's death would be terrible, but it would be manageable; the burden of Neji's death has carved an emptiness in her that cannot be filled even by their child nestled inside her. She feels sick and throws up all over Lee, who doesn't even care.

To occupy her time, Tenten cares for her weapons. Touching the cold blade of a kunai is enough to make her shiver in comfortable contentment. God, how she misses using these things—how she misses life before the war. How she misses throwing this kunai, this exact kunai, recognizable by a small nick in the blade, at Neji's blind spot to remind him of its existence while they sparred when they were thirteen. It's a vivid memory that comes to her like a lightning bolt, bringing her to her knees, and she presses the heels of her hands into her eyes and bites down to prevent herself from screaming and crying. She doesn't like pregnancy, she decides—it makes her too emotional.

So to occupy her mind from stray thoughts while caring for her weapons, Tenten decides to open up a shop. It's a little pointless, the world on the brink of peace, but she wants to get rid of some of her older, useless weapons. She buys a small building with some of the money she's been getting from Konoha to support her during her pregnancy; Lee helps her carry boxes upon boxes of kunai, shuriken, katanas and more to the new place, though she insists on carrying her special spoils of war herself. The project of setting up a shop ends up taking up the majority of her pregnancy, and throughout the baby is tranquil, resting while she does official business things and awake and kicking in her downtime.

"Oh!" Sakura says, when Tenten goes to her for a check-up and the baby punches against Tenten's stomach in response to Sakura's voice. "The fist already! A true Hyuga."

Tenten smiles and rubs at her stomach, filtering out comments about Neji as she's learned to do. What Sakura says next, though, pulls her out of her daze:

"Are you going to, you know? Give it his last name?"

Tenten stares at her blankly. This is not something she has considered. "I'm doing just fine without one," she says.

"Do you think it'll have the Byakugan?" Sakura's eyes are wide, like this is the most interesting information she could possibly receive.

"You're the doctor, you tell me."

Sakura gives her a sour look. Tenten wishes she could feel pity for her—Sasuke died in the war and was revived. From what Sakura has told her, her relationship with Sasuke is progressing well. In time, Tenten knows that they will marry, that they will produce offspring, that they will have what Tenten cannot. And Tenten cannot feel pity for her, cannot feel bad for snapping at her, can only feel justified in her selfishness.

For some reason, she tells Lee about this later, when they're at her apartment and Lee is washing her walls. "Do  _you_  think he'll have the Byakugan?" Tenten asks.

"You shouldn't have been so rude to Sakura," Lee says, ignoring her question. "She's only trying to help, Tenten."

"You don't understand," Tenten snaps.

But in a ninja village, it's not hard to seek out those that do understand. Widows and widowers left behind with children of all ages are about as common as happily married couples. Tenten remembers when Asuma died and left Kurenai alone and pregnant—it had been nothing but a blip on her radar, a thing on which to remark its tragedy and move on, because that was how life was. Now, she understands the pain at the deepest possible level, and that is what drives her to seek out Kurenai and have tea.

"You weren't married," Tenten is saying. Kurenai is nursing Mirai, a quiet baby with curly dark hair and intelligent eyes. Kurenai looks a mess, her hair disheveled and bags under her eyes, but she was so kind to Tenten, accepting her like this even though they barely know each other.

"No," Kurenai says. She shifts Mirai. "We were going to get married, but, ah. There wasn't time."

Tenten nods. Sips her tea. Says: "We were too young."

"Babies having babies," Kurenai sighs. "That's war for you."

"Isn't there always a baby boom after a war?" Tenten is too young to remember wars past; all she has now is  _her_  war, the last war, as people have been calling it. Neji, one of the last casualties. Her fingers tighten around the teacup.

Kurenai nods and makes a noise of affirmation. "You know that phrase Gai and Lee always use? Springtime of youth? That's about to become  _very_  literal."

Along with Kurenai—though it's really more Kurenai's idea, Tenten still bitter—every Wednesday Tenten transforms her weapon shop into a meeting space for the widowed parents of Konoha. It's an initiative Kakashi funds after pressure from Gai and the group becomes central to Tenten's life. Kurenai is in attendance, Mirai bouncing in her lap, leading the meetings. The number of people that attend, the amount of pregnant women and women with small children that they can't leave at home and men with dark circles under their eyes and men with babies on slings in their chest, always shocks Tenten.

At least her child won't grow up alone like Tenten did, she tells herself during the nights when it's particularly bad. But that's what you get when your civilian parents die in the Kyuubi attack—tossed into an orphanage with a bunch of other children with dead parents that weren't special enough to have the Kyuubi itself inside of them. At least her child will have one parent. It's just her that won't have what she needs most in the world.

She's always heard that motherhood is a sacrifice, but she's never been one for sacrifices. That was not her motto as a ninja. That was not her motto as a member of Team Gai. The motto was always to strive, to become stronger, to push bullheadedly through any challenges that arise. She embodies the taijutsu spirit, just like Lee, just like Gai, just like Neji. Her child has no choice but to be the same and she will have to model the behavior for them. Motherhood will not be a sacrifice—her life will not be a sacrifice—this is what she decides, tossing and turning in bed at night, missing Neji with all her being.

Labor comes while working at her shop. It's a Tuesday, the day before the meeting, and the thought occurs to her to alert Kurenai of her impending absence before waves of pain wash over her and brings her to her knees. The sole customer in her store, some Yamanaka shopping around for a graduation gift for their soon-to-be-Genin kid, comes to her aid and sends out mental signals or whatever it is the Yamanaka do. Then he carries her to the hospital and then Lee is there and Gai is there and Sakura and Kakashi—why  _Kakashi_?—and it's all a blur of drugs and blue chakra as Tenten gives birth.

It's a boy. A boy with her eyes and black Hyuga hair, already long enough that it curls. And though the child had been quiet in the womb, now it is loud, screaming and screaming and screaming. The doctors are wincing and everybody else is crying but Tenten is smiling, because this of all thing confirms that this child is hers, and she accepts her baby into her arms with the widest of grins on her face.

She names him Hizashi, after Neji's father, because he had once told her that he wanted to name his child after him. It's the least she can do. Then she gives Hizashi back to Sakura to get cleaned and weighed and all that before passing out.

Tenten dreams that she meets Neji in the afterlife. Maybe it isn't a dream; they've always been a spiritual pair, his talk of destiny and her ironic hobby of fortunetelling. His forehead is bare and the first thing she does upon seeing him is run her fingers over the space where the seal used to be, which feels impossibly smoother, Neji somehow lighter. She does not speak, afraid to shatter the illusion, so Neji says the first words they exchange:

"You had my child."

Tenten laughs. This is ludicrous. "Yeah," she says, her voice soft, her fingers still on his forehead. "I named him Hizashi, like we discussed."

Neji smiles. "I knew you would." He closes his eyes, and Tenten panics, missing the lilac already. "I'll see you soon."

And then he is gone and Tenten wakes up to Lee bouncing around her room, proclaiming all sorts of things about youth and beauty and infancy. Tenten rolls her eyes, mostly to keep herself from crying, and demands to see her child.

Hizashi is a loud baby that seems to be unable to sleep unless Tenten straps him on her back in the special ninja baby carrier Kakashi and Gai gave to her and runs across the rooftops. This becomes a nightly (or, rather, morning) ritual: Tenten leaping across rooftops under an inky sky, observing the progress of the rebuilding of Konoha while the city and her baby sleeps. It makes her feel like a ninja again, like she's transporting some important, precious cargo from one country to the next. When Hizashi is peaceful and asleep, Tenten slips under the cover of a falling moon and returns to her house.

He doesn't have the Byakugan; he doesn't have Neji's last name; the child would be hers and hers alone if it wasn't for his first name. But she dresses him in Hyuga baby robes that Hinata gifts her and decorates his nursery in black and white, pandas and yin-yang signs. She sings the traditional nursery rhymes that she begs Hinata to teach her. She tries not to feel jealous when Hinata comes around with Naruto in tow, at how Naruto always fawns over Hizashi and looks at Hinata like he just can't wait until they have one of their own. Tenten leaves Hizashi in Kurenai's care when Naruto and Hinata's wedding rolls around, and it is Kurenai that comforts her as she determinedly doesn't cry afterwards. Hizashi and Mirai make good playmates, curious and polite babies, even if Hizashi is prone to starting crying chains.

The first ninja of her generation to bear child, Tenten receives special treatment from what she should call her friends. In truth, she never bothered to bond with them—she always had Neji, who was more than enough, and Lee when Neji wasn't. But now that she has a baby, an adorable little ball of wide eyes and soft, squishy skin, everybody and their mother decides it's time to pay her a visit.

Apart from Hinata, who Tenten welcomes, and Sakura, who Tenten feels obligated to include in her baby's life as the medic that delivered him, Ino is the first to visit. Tenten, who has never really associated with Ino, has heard through the grapevine (who, in this case, is Sakura and Naruto—Hinata and Lee are too polite to gossip) that she's started to date Sai. Not a pairing she'd put together, but she reads Ino's cards at her request and they tell her it'll be a happy, long relationship. Ino fawns over Hizashi, who doesn't seem to like her, crying constantly when she holds him. After her cards are read and the baby rejects her, Ino leaves in a huff.

Next is Moegi. Tenten knows Konohamaru through Kurenai—he and his teammates babysit Mirai when Shikamaru is busy. Moegi is quiet and tentative with the baby, asking Tenten if the birth hurt ("Of course it does, kid," Tenten responds, and Moegi looks scared shitless in response) and complimenting her on retaining a good body.

The boys come, too. Kiba puts Hizashi on Akamaru and lets him ride around; Shino gives Tenten lots of informational books about all types of things; Chouji expands his stomach so Hizashi can bounce on it; Shikamaru brings a very nice rattle and tries his best not to appreciate the baby. Karui and Temari accompany their respective boyfriends, ask her questions about the birth, both saying they don't intend on having children anytime soon, if ever. The only person that notably doesn't check in is Sasuke, and as far as Tenten's concerned, that's for the better.

But Hizashi's favorite person—apart from Tenten, of course—is Lee. Hizashi clings to Lee like he's the father figure that's missing in his life. Lee is the only person apart from Kurenai, Gai and Hinata that Tenten feels safe leaving Hizashi with, and as Hizashi grows to the point where he can walk and sort of talk and throw things around the room, it is Lee that starts the early processes of ninja training. Tenten assists, teaching Hizashi about weapons and chakra control that Lee can't demonstrate, but she can't deny the bond between Hizashi and Lee. She's a bit jealous, but it is still her that Hizashi comes home to and snuggles with at night, that loves her cooking and likes to sit on the counter of her shop. She keeps his hair long—a testament to herself, a testament to Neji, a testament to everything—and braided down his back.

Apart from training, which Hizashi approaches with appropriate enthuse and vigor, his favorite hobby is to ask questions about Neji. Tenten thinks he sees him as some sort of mythical, hard-to-grasp creature, and in a way, Tenten supposes Neji is. The questions start around the time Hizashi is five, enrolled in the academy, and learns that a nuclear family structure tends to include a father.

"Mama," Hizashi says, his brow crumpled—Tenten can only see Neji in the expression—as Tenten swings by after work to pick him up from his first day.

"Yes?" Tenten asks. She doesn't recognize any of the children nor parents in the yard; all of her friends' children are younger than Hizashi.

"Why don't I have a dad?"

It's a question that floors Tenten. Her hand tightens around Hizashi's small one; her heart sinks to her chest. "Your dad sacrificed himself for the village, honey, remember? And we miss him, but he did a very good and brave thing."

"I know that." Tenten has no idea how the kid managed to pick up Neji's subtle sarcasm without Neji being around to teach it. "But it's not  _fair_. All my new friends have dads."

Tenten sighs. She stops walking and crouches down to Hizashi's height. He has curiously thick brows—Neji's were delicate and hers are well-shaped. She blames Lee's influence, somehow. "Mirai doesn't have a dad," she says, "and she's your friend."

"But she's not in my academy class." Hizashi, like Tenten, does not cry on principle, but Tenten knows her son well enough to hear the slightest of wobbles in his voice. "All the kids in my class were talking about how cool their dads are. And how they train with them."

"Hizashi," Tenten says, not prepared for this at all and wishing she had Lee here to connect with the kid. Thinking about Lee, she says, "Well, did you talk about how your mom's really cool and has neat weapons and you have an awesome uncle that trains you to kick and punch stuff?"

"Of course," Hizashi says—Tenten almost laughs at how offended he sounds. "I love you and Uncle Lee. And I love my dad. I just." Hizashi pauses and exhales; Tenten recognizes the tactic. "I wish I knew him."

"Well, I knew him pretty well." Tenten's confidence is returning; she stands up and hoists Hizashi into her arms. He's a bit big for it, but she's strong and he's always been a clingy, sort of immature child, so he is content to receive a piggy-back home from mother. Maybe Tenten shouldn't have kept him to herself, shielding him from the outside world and always treating him like precious cargo, but now isn't the time to doubt her entire parenting style. "And I can tell you everything you need to know about him."

So, over lunch that day, Tenten provides the basic. "He was from the same family as Aunt Hinata, so he had her special eyes. But they were even stronger than Aunt Hinata's—don't tell her I said that. We met when we were in the academy, when we were your age, but I didn't want anything to do with him because I thought he was a jerk."

Hizashi's eyes go wide; Tenten backpedals.

"But he wasn't a jerk for long! We were put on the same Genin team, along with Uncle Lee, because we were all really good at taijutsu, and because Neji was the best in the class and Uncle Lee was the worst. I was okay. I didn't like school a lot. Not that it isn't important! Anyway, when we were on the same team, I started getting to know your dad. I found out he wasn't a jerk, he was just quiet and he'd gone through some bad times. We spent a lot of time together because the way we trained made us both stronger. Then, when we got older, Uncle Naruto knocked some sense into him—" Tenten smiles when Hizashi giggles at this— "and he started showing how kind and understanding he was. He was still quiet, and sometimes he was a little grouchy, but he would always have your back during a mission."

"How did you and dad fall in love?" Hizashi has lost interest in his lunch, hanging onto Tenten's word.

"We were in love for a long time before either of us did anything. Love can be funny like that sometimes. But when things started getting bad about a year before the war, I thought a lot and decided that I would confess, because I was scared of losing him. Turns out he was scared of losing me, too, but he was too scared to say anything. We both laughed about how we were such scaredy-cats and, well, you know the rest." This is getting hard for Tenten; her hands are curled around the dining room table and her eyes cast downward.

Thank God for the short attention span of a child, because all Hizashi does is say, "Okay," gets back to eating his lunch, and asks when Uncle Lee is coming over to train.

Some questions Hizashi asks are silly, childish things, though they make Tenten happy to remember—what was Neji's favorite color, his favorite flower, his favorite animal?—and some are harder—why does Neji have his forehead covered in every picture, why weren't they married, why were they so young when all his friends' parents are so old?—but Tenten always answers. She doesn't believe in lies and purposeful misleading; she believes in the truth, in not being ashamed of your past, in soldering on. She's also secretly glad that Hizashi comes to her for answers to his questions and not Lee, who is prone to bursting into tears and delivering long speeches whenever Neji's name is brought up when Hizashi is around.

Hizashi is not a prodigy. Tenten didn't expect him to be. His chakra control is his main problem; though he has such fine control over his emotions, he does not have such fine control over his chakra, and his chakra tends to belay the emotions he tries so hard to hide. This makes him gravitate to taijutsu, which he  _can_  control, and as he gets older, Tenten starts training him in the art of swordsmanship. They find that if he can channel his chakra—which is large but wild—into the sword, he can produce deadly results; for his tenth birthday, Tenten goes to a blacksmith in the Sand, the best in the world, to craft a sword for him. She asks for a bird to be engraved on one side of the handle and a kunai on the other, and when Hizashi questions it, explains that it's as sign that she and Neji will always be with him no matter what.

Tenten loses track of time. She's an adult now with a child and a job. She has things to do. Her friends are married and having babies and there's always a party or a school function to attend and everything is moving fast. Sometimes she goes a whole day without thinking about Neji until she sees a facial expression replicated on Hizashi or comes across an old photo, and that makes her feel a little guilty, but when she asks Kurenai about it, Kurenai says it's normal. Healthy. Mirai is a ninja now, an actual prodigy; Kurenai herself has dusted off her old uniform and started doing ninja work despite her age, taking on a Genin team again. Tenten considers doing the same, but she has no idea how nor any desire to handle kids that aren't her own, and she enjoys the shop even if business is slow. With Hizashi older, Tenten does go on missions, but they're not the same anymore now that the world is at peace and she doesn't have Gai, Lee and Neji at her side.

In moments of downtime and tranquility, she misses Neji the most.

One of Hizashi's favorite stories is about how Neji taught Tenten to meditate. Hizashi is, understandably, a bit obsessed with the spiritual and supernatural—he believes in ghosts with fervor and takes up Tenten's fortunetelling hobby. When he asks Tenten about meditation, Tenten tells him the tale of a mission her Genin team—though they were no longer Genins at this point—took when they were fifteen. It was high stress, an assassination mission, the hardest they'd ever been on at that point. It was filled with long nights camping in cramped woodland and following their target as she travelled. About a week in, some of their target's guards found them, starting a fight. Tenten failed to see an incoming enemy from her supporting stance and it ended in Gai getting injured as he ran in front of Lee to prevent him from certain death. "It was the only time I doubted myself as a ninja," Tenten says to a frowning Hizashi. She'd been a wreck—sullen, refusing to talk, setting up camp away from her teammates so that if she started to cry they wouldn't see her. But Neji had noticed her distress; had took her to a beautiful lake with clear water and trees dripping in fruit ringing the shores that Neji had located with his Byakugan where they sat upon rocks and he told her the entire history of meditation, how it can improve your fortitude as a ninja, how it can clear your mind. Tenten was hesitant at first, only half-believing Neji, and she was pretty terrible at sitting still and concentrating. But from then on, Neji insisted she come with him to meditate, both during a mission and not. "Sometimes I just pretended to meditate until I knew he was too far gone in la-la-land or whatever and then I would just stare at him," she confesses to Hizashi. "I think he knew but I don't think he minded."

So it is in moments of recollection that remembrance hits her hard. She resorts to meditation, but she's always been no good at it. On rare occasions when she's able to reach a state of bliss or whatever it was Neji used to say, she feels wind in an enclosed room or the flutter of a feather against her cheek. Hizashi is not the only one in the house to believe in ghosts.

Life goes on. Life progresses. You soldier on. Hizashi becomes a Genin at age twelve; Tenten's proud that her child is the first among her generations' to become an official ninja. His hair is braided down his back and he's dressed in Hyuga clothes but he's assigned to Lee's genin team; Tenten knows it's only a matter of time before he's sporting a bowl cut and spandex, his headband around his bird-bone waist. And Tenten wouldn't have it any other way. She watches the ceremony with Lee by her side, a parental fondness shared between them, and she feels wind, feels feathers scrape against her unoccupied side.

"Your father would be so proud," Lee sniffs when Hizashi approaches them, putting a hand on his shoulder. Hizashi looks at his mother for confirmation.

Tenten adjusts the front of his shirt and brushes the top of his head; there are goosebumps on her arms and she feels pressured to give the right answer, convinced Neji will know if she screws up. "Your father was always proud," she ends up saying, and there are tears in her eyes. "Because not only are you his, but you are mine. It doesn't matter if you're the best ninja, the worst ninja, or not a ninja at all. You are the last gift that Neji gave to me. You are  _our_  son, Hizashi."


End file.
